Breaking: Donald Trump Bashes Crypto, Says He’s No Fan of Bitcoin
President Trump is toying with shaking up the capital gains tax. Should Bitcoin investors care, or would the changes just be white noise? | Source: (i) AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin (ii) Shutterstock; Edited by CCN.com
President Donald Trump just tweeted about bitcoin, Libra, and cryptocurrency for the first time ever. It’s the most high-profile mention cryptocurrency has ever received.
He’s not a fan:
Trump rattled off the typical objections to bitcoin and cryptos:
1) Not money
2) Volatile
3) Not based on anything
4) Used to commit crimes
All objections that the crypto industry has readily pointed out are equally, if not more true of fiat (government-issued) currencies like the U.S. dollar.
https://twitter.com/TheMitchellnMan/status/1149472776152993797
https://twitter.com/KassyDillon/status/1149473532369182721
Trump Bashes Libra on Twitter Too
In all likelihood, Trump’s statement about bitcoin and cryptocurrency was prompted by Facebook’s announcement less than a month ago that the social media company is going to deploy its own cryptocurrency, Libra, with a number of corporate partners.
Trump tweeted that he doesn’t like Libra either:
And the president concluded that there’s only one “real” currency in the USA:
Despite the fact that Trump dragged cryptocurrency on Twitter, this is a major event for bitcoin and the already-massive and rapidly expanding though still-young crypto industry.
This is the first time bitcoin has been name-dropped in a public statement on Twitter by the current U.S. president. It signals the dawn of mainstream reckoning with the disruptively relevant cryptocurrency industry.
Obama and Bitcoin, Crypto
Donald Trump’s criticism of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as threats to law and order echo the sentiments President Barack Obama expressed surrounding strong encryption in 2016:
“The question we now have to ask is if it is impossible to make an impenetrable device or system, where the encryption is so strong that there’s no key? There’s no door? At all?”
Obama then listed off the possible abuse of strong encryption to facilitate the market for illegal abuse images to coordinate terrorist attacks and evade taxes.
But then he said something about encryption that will go down in history as the best advertising slogan for bitcoin and other truly secure cryptocurrencies ever uttered:
“Because if government can’t get in, then everybody’s walking around with a Swiss Bank Account in their pocket.”
It’s like Steve Jobs wrote an ad for crypto:
The Mainstreaming of Cryptocurrency
The surprise capped off a major day in the limelight for cryptocurrency. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress Thursday that bitcoin is a store of value like gold.
